CONSULTATIONS ON THE CONVENING OF THE INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM
TRANSCRIPT OF MORNING SESSION 17 FEBRUARY 2006
Note: The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken
during the Consultations on the Convening of the Internet Governance
Forum, in Geneva on 16-17 February in Geneva, Switzerland. Although it
is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate
due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an
aid to understanding the proceedings at the session, but should not be
treated as an authoritative record.
(Gavel.) >>CHAIRMAN DESAI: Good morning.
>> Good morning!
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: Can we settle down, please. I think we need to --
we could not complete the list of speakers that we had yesterday. And
now there are some new ones who have come today on the -- who also want
to contribute to the points that we had started discussing yesterday
afternoon. So I'm just going to go straight into that list. And perhaps
I would like to start with the republic of Korea after that, it will be
(inaudible).
>>KOREA: Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for giving me the
floor. I am speaking on behalf of the republic of Korea, since this is
my delegation's first intervention, I would like to extend our thanks
to you for convening this very open and inclusive consultation meeting.
The Korean government is very pleased to participate in these
consultations on the convening of the Internet Governance Forum. And we
would like to play a positive role in the Internet Governance Forum. In
this intervention, we would like to comment on several major issues
related to the Internet Governance Forum. The Korean government
believes that the Internet Governance Forum must be multilateral,
multistakeholder, democratic, and transparent. It is important that all
stakeholders must be able to fully participate in the Internet
Governance Forum to exchange best practices and to concentrate on the
substance issues. Regarding the frequency of the Internet Governance
Forum, we believe the Internet Governance Forum should meet once a year
for two or three days, and we suggest that there must be a (inaudible)
forum to deal with important Internet-related issues between the IGF
meetings. The Korean government also would like to suggest that the
first Internet Governance Forum meeting should focus on a limited
number of high-priority issues in order to be more effective in
producing meaningful results. We believe that spam and multilingualism
would be appropriate issues for the first Internet Governance Forum.
Whatever issues we decide to discuss for the first Internet Governance
Forum, we should try to make our tangible recommendations to the issues
and identify emerging issues. With respect to the structure of Internet
Governance Forum, we believe that it is necessary to have
multistakeholder steering committee to prepare the Internet Governance
Forum and facilitate the decision-making process. And they must be
lightweight and cost-effective. The Korean government looks forward to
collaborating with other stakeholders for a successful Internet
Governance Forum and to contributing more to the consultations. Thank
you very much, Mr. Chairman.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: Thank you very much. Bertrand, are you ready?
>>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: No. Later on, if you don't mind.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: I welcome you, and I thanked you yesterday, when
you were not here, I thanked you once again, and for all the hard work
that you did in allowing us to get to this point. So I thank you, I'm
sure, on behalf of everybody. Let me go to Ambassador Masood Khan.
>>AMB. MASOOD KHAN: Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you so
much. I'm so glad to see you in the chair. And Mr. Markus Kummer on
your side. I take the floor on behalf of the Group of 77 and China.
This intervention primarily aims at providing some preliminary ideas in
interacting with some of the important issues raised by you, Mr.
Chairman, and other speakers during the rich discussions we had
yesterday. As mentioned in the statement made on behalf of the group
yesterday, WSIS belongs to the series of U.N. summits that focused on
economic and social development issues. The primary objective of the
summit in all its aspects, including Internet governance, was to
create, and I quote, a people-centered, inclusive, and
development-oriented information society. The group would like to
reiterate that the Internet Governance Forum we intend to create must
help realize this vision of a development-oriented information society.
The mandate, work, agenda, structure, composition, frequency, and
venues of meetings of the IGF must be geared towards achieving this
shared objective in the post-Tunis phase. Mr. Chairman,
multistakeholder participation was referred to in most statements made
yesterday. The Group of 77 and China would like to reiterate that the
nature, composition, and operation of the IGF must be characterized by
a balanced approach towards multistakeholder participation. Such an
approach, from our perspective, would necessitate ensuring adequate and
effective participation by governments, civil society, and businesses
from developing countries, as well as international organizations. That
are representative of their development aspirations. The objectives
must be to seek balanced representation both in terms of physical
presence and intellectual input in all formal and informal meetings, in
all deliberations, and in any decision-making processes. This would not
only lead to incorporating the diversity of views on the critical issue
of Internet governance, but will also lay a strong foundation for a
transparent, Democratic, and multilateral process with regard to
Internet governance that would be inclusive and responsive to the needs
of developing countries. The Group of 77 and China believe that the
Internet Governance Forum must be structured on the basis of regional
representation and convened on the principle of geographical rotation,
with particular reference to developing countries. Mr. Chairman, you
inquired about the content of the development agenda of the IGF. I
would like to refer once more to paragraph 65 of the Tunis Agenda,
which clearly underlines the need to maximize the participation of
developing countries in decision regarding Internet governance in a
manner that should reflect their interests. This paragraph needs to be
operationalized through the IGF. It must also be noted that this
paragraph is not limited to capacity-building issues. It casts the net
wider, to highlight the systemic perspective of development-oriented
Internet governance. The Group of 77 and China would like to mention
this, because we noticed that many interventions yesterday adopted a
reductionist approach to the development aspects of Internet
governance, limiting it to capacity-building. The issue is more complex
and has been addressed in a number of paragraphs in the Tunis Agenda,
including paragraph 49, which affirms commitment on the part of the
international community to turning the digital divide into digital
opportunity by ensuring harmonious and equitable development for all
and addressing issues like international interconnectivity costs,
technology know-how, transfer, multilingualism, and providing the users
with choice of different software models, including open source, free,
and proprietary software. It would therefore be important for our
deliberations to development a substantive agenda that is
development-oriented. We heard a few delegations that raised some
issues of priority to developing countries and development in general.
We invite stakeholders, especially in the scientific and academic
community, to contribute further with specialized ideas in this regard.
We could draw on a wealth of literature on issues such as institutional
arrangements for equitable and stable resource management, Internet
access, and international transit arrangements, multilingualism, and
local content. These are the type of contributions that we need to hear
and look forward to exploring. Mr. Chairman, we have had a rich
discussion so far during which we have heard views expressed earlier
during the WSIS process and a host of new ideas with regard to the
nature, structure, composition, mandate of the Internet Governance
Forum. We expect to hear more views during the course of these
consultations today. In view of the importance of the issue that we are
dealing with, it would be important for us to take time out in order to
reflect on these proposals. This would not only help us digest the
essence of various proposals, but would also be useful in identifying
the essential ingredients for consensus. The Group of 77 and China
would therefore like to propose that we take time out and reconvene
consultations in a month for detailed and substantive discussions. Let
me conclude by assuring you, Mr. Chairman, that the Group of 77 and
China, being the largest stakeholder in this process, would be willing
to work closely with all the other stakeholders to ensure a
development-oriented future for Internet governance that promotes
interconnectivity and affords universal accessibility. I thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: Thank you. Thank you very much, Ambassador Masood
Khan. Ambassador Masood Khan has suggested that we have these
consultations, so to speak, in two rounds, one round now and one round,
if I heard right, monthly. Did I? There are some logistical problems
there, because the commission on human rights starts in Geneva, and
then things become rather difficult. I would also like to stress that
our purpose in these consultations was essentially to -- as messengers,
to deliver to the secretary general not necessarily a consensus, but a
sense of the range of views on the subject. I think it would not be
appropriate for us as messengers to presume a consensus, or to presume
what view the secretary general would take. So I would like to stress
that we certainly do not come here with the intention of finding a
single thing which we can then report, but to find what the range of
views is, which we can convey to the secretary general. And if he feels
it's so necessary, we will certainly condition with these discussions
and consultations. But I would certainly request people when they speak
to react to what others are saying so that we get a sense of where the
range of -- is particularly wide, where the range is relatively narrow.
That's been very helpful. And I think we can now get back to our list
of speakers. Senegal, ECA. Where is ECA? Can I first give the floor to
Senegal, and then to the ECA?
>>SENEGAL: Thank you, chairman. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, in
Senegal, after the world summit information society stakeholders
approved the idea that at the local level, a national forum be
established on the information society which, in the long run, would
allow all national stakeholders, government, civil society, and the
private sector, to come to an agreement on a minimum common consensual
base before defending any position in the international community. This
is intended to make you understand that I speak on my own behalf,
without being in contradiction with the official position of the
government. On the purpose of our meeting today, there is a comment I'd
like to make. In paragraph 72 (F) of the Tunis Agenda, it says that one
of the mandates of the forum is to strengthen, enhance the commitment
of stakeholders, particularly those in developing countries in existing
or future Internet governance mechanisms. Now, let's look around
ourselves. How many official African delegations do we have here out of
the 51 which should be here? How many associations and NGOs from
African civil society are present in this room? Maybe four or five.
And, finally, how can you imagine initiating inclusive practices for
the developing countries if they are left on the touch line from the
very outset? And further, if I've understood things properly, the forum
is not being called upon to replace or monitor existing bodies which
carry out their jobs properly for the greater good of the community of
Internet users. However, we cannot but note that when major decisions
are taken on the policies required for a global vision, I really
sincerely think that it's not up to the brave technicians to guide
operations. The creation and establishment of the forum is a timely
initiative. The Internet world is a model based on freedom. And we
should, thus, avoid placing unacceptable constraints upon it. This
means that the forum needs an operational Secretariat, as we've already
had in the Working Group on Internet Governance. It doesn't need a
cumbersome, inefficient administration. The bureau of the forum should
be the same sort of thing, lightweight and operational. The
establishment of the forum is a strong recommendation emerging from the
world summit where thousands and thousands of men and women were
involved, working tirelessly for so many years and who produced some
excellent results. I think it would be useful to reproduce models which
have shown that they can do. We could refer to the implementation of
the bureau and that sort of thing. Although they have been criticized,
these structures have produced appreciable results for the mandate of
the forum. As long as the causes why the forum was created are still
with us, it seems to me that we need to keep in place and improve, if
possible, and necessary, the agenda must factor in problems related to
developing country participation. I thank you for your attention.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: Thank you very much. Economic commission for
Africa.
>>ECA: I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for convening this important forum,
which is fully inclusive, and for also giving us the opportunity to
address this gathering of distinguished stakeholders as members of the
group of the U.N. general recommendations. Mr. Chairman, we have been
talking about Internet governance during the last three years because
of the growing importance of the social, economic, cultural, and
political role of the Internet. Moreover, at the global level, key ICT
decisions are being made at various international meetings and in
global institutions that directly or indirectly have implications on
the development of ICTs in a number of developing countries, including
Africa. Some of these global policy decisions are also having an impact
on and shaping the direction and the nature of ICT for development
policies and programs in these countries. These issues have been
discussed and learned in Africa in several fora, including discussion
list on Internet governance, together Africa input for the WSIS
process, face-to-face meetings during the Africa general preparatory
conferences on the WSIS, preparing research papers in cooperation with
the U.N. ICT task force. However, despite all these efforts, African
participation in global IG is still hampered by several factors,
including the limited bargaining power and leverage of African
countries as compared to other countries in the regional blocs, the
absence of consistent positions by African countries on major global
Internet governance issues, the lack of expertise and capacity in
relevant Internet governance issues, including standards and technical
issues, the absence of effective cooperation among African countries on
how to engage in collective negotiation on relevant IG issues for their
mutual benefit, the effort of some of the extra-regional bloc alliances
that some African countries enter into, which in some cases makes it
difficult for African countries to act as a group. There is also the
lack of necessary financial resources, as stated by several
participants, to meet the cost of attending the meetings of the
relevant international IG organizations, which are most of the time
held in Europe or in America. These factors have increased the acute
dependency of African countries on a governance system for which they
have little or no influence. Hence, in line with the WSIS outcomes, we
recommend the Internet Governance Forum to address IC-related
development issues as a priority, including the following:
Capacity-building, affordable and equitable access, national
infrastructure development, interconnection cost and development of
(inaudible) points, cultural and language diversity, network security,
data protection, protection and privacy, intellectual property rights,
free and open source software. There also need to develop sector
applications on e-government, e-education, e-commerce in order to
create digital opportunities and enable the countries to achieve the
MBGs. Mr. Chairman, on the structure and its composition, we believe
that the IGF should have a multistakeholder steering committee at both
the regional and international levels. There are -- the regional level,
in order to make the process inclusive and take into account view of
stakeholders at the national and continental levels, the IGF annual
meetings should be preceded by regional meetings which may be organized
as often as necessary. This would allow regions to prepare common
positions as well as unified input and common understanding, before
moving to the global level. These regional meetings may be held
together with the implementation and evaluation workshops to be
organized by the U.N. regional commissions in accordance to the WSIS
action lines. This may lead to more efficient annual meetings. In
addition, Mr. Chairman, use of online resources and online meetings as
well as video conferencing facilities should be encouraged at both
regional and global levels. On the output of the IGF, we believe it
will not be enough to exchange views and information only, but to have
the IGF influence decisions and processes to be taken into -- in the IG
arena. To conclude, Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to inform you that as
capacity-building is one of the biggest impediment to Africa's
participation in the IG process, -- we are working in developing
training material and organizing onsite and online courses for Internet
governance and policymakers. With the support of industry Canada and
participation of other partners, such as Agence Intergouvernementale De
La Francophonie, ICANN, and DiploFoundation, Africa will have its first
course in May 2006 in Kigali, Rwanda. The online course will be made
available at the African Virtual Learning Academy. Mr. Chairman, may I
also inform that you the first conference of ICT ministers to follow up
on the WSIS decision will be held from 3 to 5 April 2006. Thank you,
Mr. Chairman. .
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: Thank you very much. I now have a couple of
speakers from yesterday, Mary Rundle and then Bertrand de la Chapelle.
>> Mary Rundle: My comments echo those of many speakers. Specifically,
I'm here to offer resources from a new, nonprofit Geneva-based
association with open membership, that is, Geneva net dialogue. Geneva
net dialogue would offer its resources to help carry out the following
functions: Maintaining an interactive, multistakeholder Web site;
helping to coordinate background papers and academic research; and
helping to organize technology tutorials and briefings on emerging
issues. Working with other groups, the three academic institutions
would like to offer their services to the IGF effort through this
association. These include the Berkman Center at Harvard Law School in
the United States, the research center for information law at the
University of Saint Gallen in Switzerland, and the School of
Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University in
Singapore. These institutions would welcome the active involvement of
IGF fellows as well from developing countries. The envisioned Web site
would offer the following features, among others, regular updates from
relevant intergovernmental organizations and standards bodies, a
calendar to signal upcoming meetings where net-related rules will be
discussed, descriptive as well as normative content from the
stakeholder community to be summarized in periodic updates for
policymakers. Geneva net dialogue already includes members from the
technology community who have built successful multilingual Web sites
like creative comments international, with a community of international
volunteers. These ideas are elaborated in a proposal on the IGF Web
site. They are put forward as food for thought. If it turns out that
the community would like to draw upon these resources, Geneva net
dialogue would be delighted to contribute. Thank you.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: Thank you. Now Bertrand de la Chapelle from
WSIS-online.
>>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for giving me the
floor. I am Bertrand de la Chapelle, the director of WSIS-online, but I
am making this contribution on a personal behalf. Mr. Chairman, you
invited us yesterday to contribute in a thinking-aloud mode, and I will
follow your recommendation here, presenting a few concrete ideas in a
personal capacity to feed the debate. Focusing on the first meeting in
Athens, first of all, the IGF should be established in the most
pragmatic and self-organizing manner possible. As the participant from
Singapore mentioned yesterday, we want the IGF to start small and
evolve. And in order to prove the movement by walking and save time,
the simplest approach is probably to organize Athens as a three- to
four-day open conference with a basic registration process like the one
used for the present meeting, open also to interested individuals. The
second point is, drawing from the discussions yesterday, it seems that
in one way or the other, Athens will, to be substantive, address a
diversity of issues in a limited number of thematic sessions. Numbers
may vary, but something between four and six sessions might be middle
ground. In addition, of course, to the necessary opening and final
wrap-up plenarys. A third point is that these thematic sessions would
have the main purpose of allowing all actors to reach a better
understanding of each issue and the challenges it raises, even -- and I
insist on that -- if they do not agree at that stage on how it should
be addressed. The only thing that is important is that actors agree
that the issue has to be addressed, even if they don't agree on how.
And, unfortunately, on what the solutions should be. The fourth point
is, as an example, such sessions could start with a panel allowing
experts from the different categories of stakeholders to present the
different dimensions of the issue, and then a brief overview of the
main actors already involved in addressing it would be followed by a
brief discussion on how the forum, according to its mandate, could
facilitate discussion on the issue and interaction among the various
actors. Now, I'm coming to the tricky part, and the fifth point is how
would and should these themes be selected. Several suggestions have
been made yesterday and surely others will be made today, but we could
benefit from an iterative, inclusive and structured process between now
and the coming weeks. I suggest that following these consultations, an
open call for suggestions of themes be initiated by the Secretariat to
all stakeholders with a deadline at the end of March. The sixth point
is that in that respect, to respond to this contribution, to this call
for suggestions, stakeholder could ideally contribute one-page
submissions in a sort of six-point format. The six points would be,
first, a proposed theme in a concise formulation. Second point would be
a brief description of why, in their view, it is important to address
this theme. The third point would be why, in their view, it is in
conformity with the Tunis Agenda in terms of substance, and
particularly in reference to paragraph 34 to 54, but not exclusively.
Fourth point would be how, in their view, this issue fits within the
mandate of the IGF and its mission as detailed in paragraph 72. The two
last points would be a rapid indication of who the main actors in the
field are to the best of their knowledge. Actors could be anchors to
participate in the forum and its thematic sessions. And last but not
least, the submissions would indicate why, in their view, this issue
should be addressed at the first annual meeting of the forum rather
than in subsequent ones. Very quickly to finish, the submissions will
be posted online by the Secretariat and a second round, second phase of
online comments would be open for all actors to express support or to
criticize the proposals during the month of April. Then, as I saw on
the Web site of the IGF, the second round of open consultations that is
envisaged for May, which is not decided yet, could then provide a
summary report to the Secretariat, finalize the precise list of themes
for Athens, and multistakeholder program committee would then, then, be
formed to organize the introductory panels for its thematic session and
guarantee the involvement of the key stakeholders in this field.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, as a concluding suggestion, there will be a
large number of actors that will be proposing themes that will not be
retained for the Athens meeting. I suggest that during the Athens
meeting a short session of two to three hours in the format of a posted
session is organized to allow all the actors who have submitted a
formal suggestion of theme to present in a three- to five-minute strict
presentation the various elements of their submissions in order to feed
the agenda-setting process. I keep my intervention on that issue for
the moment, and I thank you very much for allowing me to give this
contribution.
>> CHAIRMAN DESAI: Thank you. I now, I'll name the next three, Axel
Pawlik, the managing director of RIPENCC, Raul Echeberria who is also a
member of the numbers resources organization, and then I have Dr.
Jeremy Beale from the confederation of British industry, and Brazil.
>>AXEL PAWLIK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity
to take the floor during these open consultation. My name is Axel
Pawlik. I speak for the RIPENCC, a Dutch membership association that
operates one of the Internet root name server clusters and also
performs the task of regional Internet registry for Europe, Middle
East, and parts of central Asia. Having been established in 1992 we
are currently serving about 4,300 members in that service region, most
of them companies that among themselves are responsible for operating
the Internet in this part of the world. We have followed and also
actively contributed to the WSIS process since the early Geneva phase.
Only last week we hosted a round table meeting for governments and
regulators an activity that we view as a direct outflow of our
activities around the world summit. May I say we are quite impressed
with and congratulate you for the progress you made so far which you,
Mr. Chairman, and secretary Kummer have been able to sustain until
today. Listening to the debate, and yesterday and here today, we sense
there is a strong consensus emerging on the fundamental principles of
the Internet Governance Forum. Clearly it will be multistakeholder, it
should not be bound by u.n. procedures or WSIS (inaudible) rules in
order to be fully open and accessible. We too feel about three days is
appropriate for the meeting itself, that there should be one meeting
per year, that the Secretariat should be relatively small and
lightweight and there should be a program committee that prepares the
individual meetings. We agree with what has been put forward so far to
be among the first topics, Spam and multilingualism. And further
consistent with our own actions over the last years whew would like to
emphasize the need for a strong development approach. Finally I would
like to close this intervention with a statement that for the IGF to be
a success it is essential that the Internet community in this pervasive
medium for decades now is recognized as a primary stakeholder in the
process on an equal footing with government, civil society, and the
private sector. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>> CHAIRMAN DESAI: Jeremy Beale, confederation of british industry.
Dr. Beale.
>>JEREMY BEALE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The confederation of British
industry fully supports the statement made yesterday by the ICC/CCBI,
but I would just like to elaborate some of the issues raised there
about support for a multistakeholder event with a lightweight
Secretariat by drawing on some of the experiences that we have had
working with our members in the United Kingdom. Like the representative
from France, MEDEF in France yesterday who spoke, the CBI represents a
very broad range of british businesses, from very, very large ones to
very small ones, and in total membership has thousands of members. This
area of Internet-based commerce, though, is one where there really are
in many respects no established rules of success. Much of the work
that we do in the CBI is really about sharing best practice amongst our
members. And large companies learn from small ones about how to be
dynamic, innovative, and fleet of foot, and small ones learn from large
companies about how to be efficient and looking forward over the
horizon from their immediate factors. But there are two things that
stand out, really, in what companies find that they need to take into
account in relation to being successful in developing the Internet as a
medium of commerce. Firstly, social factors. Companies find that they
cannot operate in the traditional business manner in many respects.
They have to take account of the social environment that they operate
in and also of their employees, the social background of their
employees, the social interests. And that way they become much more
effective at marketing, it's a much more sophisticated marketing
process, but it also means that they have to design products that are
much more tailored to different social interests and social groups. The
other area is in governance. Both in terms of internal governance by
companies, they have to change the way they operate. Less
hierarchical, more decentralized, more participatory. The other form
of governance is in terms of the relations with the public sector and
the state. There is many different ways, many different new forms of
partnership that are being developed between the private sector and the
public sector in the UK, and many of these are experimental. Whole new
business models and ways of operating have resulted from this, and they
are still ongoing. It is a learning process for everyone. But in
order to get at that learning process, we found that we have to share
best practice. We also have to do so in a way that is not centralized.
We can't set the rules. We actually just have to act as a way of
supporting the efforts and interests of our members. Now, being
successful at this is essential for our businesses, but that means that
in total, it's also essential for global economic growth and the
development issues that have been raised here. You can't have
successful development globally if you don't have successful commerce.
And so the lessons that are being learnt by some very advanced
companies, but also some very traditional companies in the UK and in
other countries I think would be usefully shared with other countries
and businesses in developing countries in the process that we're
talking about. Thank you very much.
>> CHAIRMAN DESAI: I have Raul Echeberria from the Number Resource
Organization and LACNIC followed by Brazil, followed by European union.
>>RAUL ECHEBERRIA: thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Raul
Echeberria, as you said, and I am the executive director of LACNIC, the
registrar of addresses for Latin America and the Caribbean, and I am
the chair of the NRO, the number resources organization. And it gives
all Internet registries in 2003 the -- it improves the coordination
between regional registries and it acts as a focal point in linking the
-- linking the various stakeholders up. I wanted to make a number of
comments representing the NRO. And I would like to say that I am very
pleased to see you chairing this group, sir. Also Mr. Kummer working
as the secretary. I'm sorry I wasn't here yesterday because -- but
unfortunately I had personal reasons for not being here. It's not easy
for many of us to come to meetings in Geneva. It takes me over 20
hours to do a round trip. Many people think that Geneva is the ideal
place for these activities to take place, but for many people, it's
very difficult to attend and to have these activities centralized in
one particular place. As we all know, one of the characteristics of the
forum that was defined throughout the long negotiation in the summit,
and of course the important aspects that need to be defined don't need
to be discussed once again, but one of the aspects that I was
mentioning was the multistakeholder nature of this forum, and the
importance that all stakeholders take part on an equal footing in the
IGF. So this is the basis upon which we should build this forum. It
doesn't need to be debated. I agree with those who have taken the floor
to say that the forum should not have a bureau but, rather, it should
be headed by a program committee. We support that approach. Of course,
it being understood that this committee, program committee, must be
multistakeholder and the conditions for participation for this
committee must be the same conditions for all the stakeholders. In
this respect I would like to repeat something that has already been
said in this room; namely, the importance for the technical community
to be involved, which was recognized in paragraph 36 of the Tunis
Agenda. So the technical community is a valuable stakeholder, and they
have made extremely valuable contributions to the current situation of
the Internet. We also agree with those who say that, if appropriate,
the Secretariat should be small and lightweight, and we'd like to add
that it should have -- be balanced in its composition. Not only the
participation of stakeholders, both in the regional participation and
agenda participation. It should be the model used for the creation of
the working group on Internet Governance. That could be the basis on
which we could build this program committee, which should be smaller
than the WGIG was. Smaller than the WGIG was. It's important that in
the forum we seek mechanisms to find consensus within the work of the
forum, and in that respect the mechanisms that were used and are being
used in many Internet organizations and which have proved successful
can be taken as a reference point. With regard to the frequency of the
meeting of the IGF, we believe that a high frequency of meetings would
be an obstacle for the participation of the civil society and
organizations developing country organizations because they have fewer
resources to fund an effective participation in an international agenda
which already has many events. So we think once a year is enough, and
the meetings should not last more than two or three days at the most.
That should be enough. And what is most important here, of course, is
something we have been repeating, we have been saying before the WGIG;
namely, we should have online participatory tools because that
guarantees the chance for everybody to participate. Web casting,
remote access, the publication of documents for public comments, the
availability of electronic forums. These are the most important
aspects to take into account for the implementation of the forum. With
regard to where to hold the meetings, well, we believe that we need to
have geographical diversity in the meetings. As I was saying before,
it is no easy for people to attend meetings in Geneva or go to places
that are far away from where we live. So, therefore, the
regionalization of the meetings and the rotation of the regions would
enable a fair participation for stakeholders from the whole world. We
propose that the meetings be organized back to back with other
important meetings dealing with the same issues. So that not only
would more people be able to be involved, but also the organizational
costs would fall to the organizations that host the events and the
organizations that work with the IGF. Finally, with regard to the
agenda, we believe that we mustn't reproduce the ideological
discussions which took place in the summit for a long time. We must
focus on issues which are real issues for the community. There is a
great opportunity here to build things that benefit the greatest
possible number of people. Therefore, one of the main issues, as other
people have mentioned, should be cybercrime, the right to privacy, cost
of interconnections, Spam, capacity building, multilingualism, inter
alia. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
>> CHAIRMAN DESAI: Thank you. Brazil.
>>BRAZIL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be brief in my remarks,
just to try to help you on these topics that you asked for our opinion.
First of all, of course we would like to say that we support the speech
of ambassador Khan on behalf of the G77. I would like to touch upon
only three topics, Mr. Chairman. The first one on the proposal of G77
for another round of consultations. The second one on how many days we
are planning to stay there in Athens, and the third one on the format
of the bureau. On the first one, Mr. Chairman, I think it's very useful
the proposal of G77 to have another round of consultations. Maybe the
ideal period could be after the ICANN GAC meeting that is going to take
place in New Zealand at the end of March. We could have something at
the beginning of April here after this gathering there in New Zealand.
Second topic, on the days, how many days we should stay there, I told
you yesterday, Mr. Chairman, that Brazil favors at least five days.
And I think it's a reasonable thing, if we can think together with our
Greek colleagues. For them there will be not much trouble because the
amount of resources they are going to put in place if we stay there one
or two days more for them, there will be no difficulty. And my
reasoning is very simple. I'm pretty sure that the Greek government is
going to organize a very beautiful opening ceremony with high-ranking
officials there that will take at least the whole morning. And then we
are going to have the afternoon for speeches. National speeches,
speeches from the private sector and civil society. Then we lost the
first day [ Laughter ].
>>BRAZIL: As simple as that. [ Laughter ] [ Applause ]
>>BRAZIL: Then we go to the second day, Mr. Chairman, and on the
second day we have a very good proposal by our dear friend De La
Chapelle. And if we follow what he is proposing us, i think we are
going to stay there two weeks at least. But let's see, if we stay just
one day, we manage to split our groups in 10, 15 workshops and then we
manage to do all the topics Mr. De La Chapelle is proposing and then we
go to the last day. There will be the wrap-up discussion. You are
going to prepare a very good resume of the discussions, and then the
whole morning is lost. We go to the afternoon session again. The Greek
government is going to organize a very beautiful closing ceremony and
then finish. I think that's not enough, Mr. Chairman, and that's not
fair for people. As my colleague from Uruguay just said, they are
going to fly 20 hours to go to Athens just to stay there three days,
losing the first and the third one, having just one day of working. I
think that that's not reasonable, to say the least. On the third topic,
mr. Chairman, on the format, I think we could profit from our
experience in the WSIS. We used to have -- used to have three bureaus.
We used to have the government bureau, private sector bureau, and the
civil society bureau. We could have something similar there. Now, three
bureaus, 15 representatives in each bureau, which makes a total number
of 45. In the governmental bureau, that I understand a little bit more
than the other ones, we could have -- we have five regions, we could
have three representatives per region making 15 representatives. It's
reasonable. It worked in the first phase. In the second phase I think
we increased the number of representatives from the regions. But it's
manageable. Then the Brazilian proposal to the format of the bureau,
which is different from the Secretariat, as I told you, I would like to
see you there along with Mr. Markus Kummer heading the Secretariat, we
could have the three bureaus, and manage to have a way to exchange
information among the three bureaus and take decisions on how to do,
how to proceed, which topics to select and things like that. I think I
will stop at this point here. Thank you Mr. Chairman.
>> CHAIRMAN DESAI: On your last point, I would like to stress that I
am a retired man, and I would certainly, given my eating habits, not
fit into the lightweight categories. [ Laughter ]
>> CHAIRMAN DESAI: So that is not practical. As far as time is
concerned, I would also like to remind Brazil of a very fundamental
principle of all multilateral diplomacy, which is that discussions and
negotiations expand the contract to fill the time available. So if we
have more time, it will be used. But if we give less time, things will
also get done. But we can come back to this. There's nothing set in
stone in any of this. Greece, did you want to respond to this? Yes.
Then maybe before I turn to you, I would request Greece to respond to
this. And then we'll come to the E.U.
>>GREECE: Thank you, chairman. Later in the day, my good friend
George Papadatos, who has been dealing with this IGF achievement,
because we call it an achievement, will brief us about the Greek
position. Just a few remarks, after the very interesting and useful
intervention of our Brazilian friends. As far as dates were concerned,
we are, of course, I think in the hands of the secretary-general, and
we trust the chair to bring to him the message of our consultations
today. And as far as the organization is concerned, we have to say
that we belong to those who believe in light structures. But once
again, we are in your hands to suggest the form of bureau or bureaus.
And of course we are ready to be as constructive as one can imagine,
and flexible. Now, as far as the days that we last, our meeting in
Athens, of course it is not for us to decide, but we think that one of
our challenges is to keep this meeting dynamic and interesting for the
days it will last. So we are not sure -- although of course we are
ready, as a host country, to undertake a longer period than the one
envisaged at the beginning from the organizational point of view, we
are not sure that long days, or one week or something, one working
week, would be the best solution. But once again, we will follow the
consensus and we will be happy to take the measures needed. Thank you,
chairman.
>> CHAIRMAN DESAI: European Union.
>>E.U.: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I speak on behalf of
the European Union and the acceding countries Romania and Bulgaria. The
E.U. would like to thank you for leading yesterday's fruitful and
constructive discussion. We have listened with interest to the
interventions made and we would like to address some of the questions
you put forward yesterday. Mr. Chairman, we reiterate the importance
the E.U. attaches to the overall multistakeholder nature of the IGF as
enshrined in the Tunis agenda. In this context, we support the idea of
a slim workable and representative program committee working in an open
and transparent manner. We agree that the Tunis Agenda has identified
several follow-up mechanisms, the IGF process being one of them.
Bearing in mind the issue of limited resources, we share the views
expressed by several participants to limit the number of physical
meetings in the IGF process by using virtual and electronic means of
communication. At the same time, we would like to ensure that this will
not pose an obstacle to the participation of any stakeholder. GIIC in
order to ensure a constructive debate, these meetings should focus on a
limited number of subjects. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: Thank you. I now turn to Allen Miller of WITSA.
>>WITSA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I am the executive director of the
World Information Technology and Services Alliance, which is an
alliance of over 60 ICT associations from around the world. More than
half of our members are from developing countries. WITSA maintains an
active capacity-building program, and in recent time, we've been active
in countries such as Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda,
Mongolia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia. I believe that
some of the lessons that we've learned from that program can be useful
in the context of the Internet Governance Forum. One main principle
that we do support is that participation by all stakeholders in an
integrated fashion is a key principle. Stakeholders from developing
countries have valuable experience and information to share in this
discussion forum, and they must all participate with an equal status
and in all dimensions and aspects of the forum. In order for the forum
to be truly open and accessible to many of these stakeholders from
developing countries, we need to deal with practical issues, such as
support for accreditation, visas. We must simplify those processes and
be sensitive to their needs for financial resources to ensure their
participation. We also feel that the first event should fully integrate
and use the online tools that we've been discussing, and not
necessarily tools of the Internet itself, but tools such as the
realtime transcription system that is being used in this consultation,
as this will increase the participation from around the world by all of
the interested parties. The supporting functions for the IGF, we feel,
should include representatives from all of the stakeholder groups, to
ensure that their views are reflected. A small Secretariat or bureau
focusing on the implementation of decisions made by a diverse,
representative steering committee or similar guiding body is important.
And that small Secretariat or bureau can then administer a Web site
that acts as a repository for the contributions regarding the issues
under discussion at any particular meeting. Finally, and in conclusion,
we feel that the forum itself should be inspired by the substantive and
constructive way in which these consultations are being managed and the
interactive discussion that is taking place here by all on an equal
basis. Thank you.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: Switzerland.
>>SWITZERLAND: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would perhaps want to
respond to your appeal and on the comments, what was said. What is
important to us, in our view, is that the first meeting of the IGF, we
should be straightaway involved in the work, so straight into the
substance. Many people will have made a long journey to arrive there,
and they deserve to be involved in substantive discussion straightaway.
So the practical issues and the procedural issues of the IGF must be
decided upon before Athens. Some have suggested to achieve that that we
needed to have an additional meeting to that, perhaps at the beginning
of April. We're not against that idea, as long as we know what we will
do at that additional meeting, complementary meeting. In other words,
we could have clear proposals on the process. We should also have a
clear signal from the secretary general on how we can proceed, how
people will be convened to the meeting or how the program committee
will be set up. And also at this meeting, we need to agree on the
issues to deal with in Athens. On that topic, Mr. Chairman, if you try
and spread yourself too thinly, then you might not cover things
appropriately. So in the first meeting of the IGF, we need to focus on
a handful of subjects. We've heard of spam, cybercrime,
multilingualism. We could add another one, perhaps. But let us focus on
three topics, essentially. I feel that will be the best, the most
effective way of working. That's what I think we should think about,
Mr. Chairman, at this stage of the discussion. Thank you.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: CCBI, Ayesha Hassan.
>>CCBI: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you, Mr. Kummer. I'm pleased
to provide a few follow-up comments on behalf the CCBI and ICC members
on the flexibility needed and the format of the IGF. Many interventions
have highlighted the reasons and principles for why the IGF needs to be
flexible, for example, each IGF event may focus on a different topic or
closely related topics which will need different expertise, perhaps
different ways of exchanging ideas and information. And this needs to
be considered in formulating the support for the IGF and how the event
will be shaped. On the format, business envisions the IGF as a vehicle
to bring the substantive work and experience on the Internet-related
issues selected from existing organizations and all stakeholders to
this global space. The unique quality of the IGF is the participation
of all stakeholders, participating on an equal footing, and thus the
program for the event should be shaped to maximize this opportunity.
Key visionaries and experts from all stakeholder groups will be
attracted to the IGF because it offers an opportunity for them to reach
a large, diverse, inclusive audience, and because they will welcome the
opportunity to contribute in a meaningful way. A true exchange of
information and experience is best accomplished by focused,
well-prepared, interactive discussions. This could be in the form of
expert panels discussing the topic from a variety of perspectives, thus
sharing the lessons learned, the challenges, and successes. It is
possible that solicitation of white papers or written materials may
develop as an input to the IGF. And certainly it will be important to
public the proceedings of each IGF. Unfocused discussions will not help
us reach the goal of sharing and exchanging. We also encourage the
secretary general to include in his request for reports information on
how each organization is addressing the challenge of the WSIS, becoming
more transparent, et cetera, and how the concept of
multistakeholderrism is being addressed. On a practical note, we also
have noted that there is a May meeting on the revised time line of the
IGF Web site. If there are to be planning meetings, we urge them to be
open to all stakeholders that a date be set promptly to allow for
travel planning, and that where practical, they be aligned with other
open meetings being planned on other activities identified in the Tunis
Agenda. I would like to conclude by offering the following ideas from
the global business community companies and members of national,
regional, global, and sectoral members in the CCBI and ICC networks.
First, this is a unique opportunity to maximize the substantive
experiences, both the challenges and obstacles of governments,
businesses, civil society, the technical and academic communities, and
other stakeholders, to promote the information society for all. The
most effective way to accomplish that in the IGF is for all of us and
all the stakeholders around the world who are interested in these
issues to be able to participate together with equal abilities to
speak, share, and shape the IGF going forward. The program should
facilitate this objective and not be a hindrance to this opportunity
being realized. Thank you for this opportunity to contribute.
>>SECRETARY KUMMER: Thank you. The chairman asked me to take over. He
is going to attend a media conference. And this maybe gives me also
just the opportunity to address this tentative time line we have put up
on our Web site, which may have caused some confusion. But this is
basically a tentative time line working backwards. The secretary
general has been given a clear mandate to convene the meeting by the
second quarter of 2006. That means the end of June. And in order to do
so, he will need the information on how he should do so. And we would
have thought that it would be necessary for this, be that steering
committee, program committee, to meet maybe sometime late in May to
make proposals to the secretary general then what the agenda should be
like and what the meeting would look like, what the program would look
like. And we would hope that it'll be an attractive, interactive,
dynamic program. So this is very tentative. But having listened now to
various delegates who also proposed a second round of consultations,
there are certain logistical constraints we are facing. We depend on
the goodwill of the United Nations office here in Geneva, and they have
been always very good and very kind at letting us use their facilities
if the facilities are available. And I know already that this spring
will be extremely heavy. And I think it will be almost impossible to
get a date where we can have a meeting in this format, that is, with
all the interpretation in all the languages, which I think is very
important for all participants. So one way of looking at this might be
-- and I say "might be," and I throw it into the room just for
consideration -- that we could envisage having this program committee
in place by end of May, and we could have maybe an open meeting, open
consultation in conjunction with the first meeting of the program
committee could meet the day after and would take into account the
considerations given to the program committee at the open meeting. But
this, as I said, is a very preliminary suggestion, and it is something
maybe also participants would like to react. But the paramount concern,
of course, is to be in a position to respect the mandate that was given
by the summit to the secretary general, that is, to convene a meeting
by the second quarter of 2006. And there we will need to have the
elements to be in place. And I do apologize for having talked for so
long. But I think it is good to -- that we are on the same wavelength
also with regard to these logistical constraints. Morocco has asked for
the floor, please, Morocco.
>>MOROCCO: Good morning, everybody. On behalf of the Moroccan
delegation, I would first of all like to extend our warm thanks to the
U.N. secretary general, who was kind enough to stimulate the
organization of this meeting, consultations on the establishment of the
forum, in keeping with the recommendations from the Tunis Summit. I'd
also like to thank the chair and say how pleased we are to take part in
a meeting which is so elegantly and skillfully conducted. Morocco has a
major interest in the preparatory meeting for the forum and expects the
forum to work to build on what was agreed in the Tunis Summit,
particularly the development of the Internet in developing countries.
This would, in particular, require the development of infrastructures,
capacity-building, and that sort of thing. We'd like to make two
proposals to that end on the future organization. It would be desirable
for the number of participants in the bureau to be sufficiently large
to allow developing countries to be represented and also allow all
stakeholders to take an active part in the forum meetings. And, thus,
if we are talking about regionalized organizations, we ought to maybe
descend, then, to the subregional level, which would allow regions to
express their development needs in terms of ICT, needs which could then
be consolidated and classified on the basis of an approach yet to be
defined. And together with that sort of approach, we consider that all
topics and issues are of major importance and that any ranking of
priorities may be required, but the importance of each and every topic,
as understressed by previous -- as stressed by previous speakers, and
the importance of each theme and question will differ from country to
country. So our proposal is, first of all, that we provide for
subregional representation, and, secondly, that we try to rank
priorities, taking account of the specific needs and priorities in each
subregion. Thank you.
>>SECRETARY KUMMER:MERCI, and give the floor to theGlobal Information
Infrastructure Commission.
>>GIIC: GIIC Kummer, thank you. For the GIIC, the Global Information
Infrastructure Commission, which is a confederation of CEOs of
information and communications technology companies from throughout the
world, I want to briefly reinforce a point deserving, I think, of
repetition. I intervened for the narrowly limited purpose of
respectfully asking you to remain mindful of the overarching purposes
of that from which the need for an Internet Governance Forum arose.
That, of course, was the WSIS. And the ends towards which the summit
was directed were directly tied to the millennium development goals of
the United Nations and had to do with the diffusion of ICTs, including
Internet access capabilities, to ICT underserved parts of the world. If
the world -- if the forum is going to be responsive to the origins of
its establishment, it must focus in a highly disciplined sort of way on
those aspects of Internet governance that relate most closely to those
who at present are largely unconnected to the world because of their
lack of access to communications conduits, network-connecting
information appliances, and, of course, the Internet. Absent such a
focused orientation, the GIIC fears the forum may be diverted to issues
of concern primarily, if not solely, to I understand in economically
developed parts of the world. We must maintain our focus, I
respectfully submit, on the needs of the vast numbers of the world's
inhabitants who live not in the leading, but, rather, the trailing edge
of technology. Thank you, and we in the GIIC look forward to
cooperating with you, national governments, and other stakeholders in
addressing responsive, as yet unresolved Internet governance issues.
>>SECRETARY KUMMER: Thank you for your statement. And turn now to
Cuba. You have the floor, sir.
>>CUBA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As it's the first time I take the
floor, I would first of all like to congratulate you, and through you,
I would like to extend my congratulations to the secretary general and
to Mr. Desai for having convened these consultations. First of all, I
would like to say that Cuba would like to add its voice to those who
spoke yesterday, and in particular, what Pakistan said on behalf of the
G77 and China. Mr. Chairman, we would like, in particular, to
underscore or support the proposal of the G77 whereby we should convene
new consultations on the organization of the forum for the arguments
and criteria which the delegation of Pakistan set forth on behalf of
the group. We listened very carefully to your comments on possible
obstacles to the holding of those consultations. But taking into
account the fact that this meeting was convened by the secretary
general of the United Nations, I'm convinced that the office of the
United Nations here in Geneva will do everything they can to respond to
the request of what we could call the big boss of the Secretariat. Now,
I don't think it would be logical to have other consultations, because
what we're doing over these two days is the first time we are looking
at the structure and the format and other issues related to the forum.
So everything that's been said here, we need to formalize it, digest
it, and then to be more active and proactive in the debate, we need to
come up with specific proposals. I want to make a general comment on
the forum. The forum is a product of the summit. I would like to
underscore that. And this is the process of follow-up for this meeting,
especially with regard to Internet governance. So we're not starting
from scratch. We have enough material to continue our work on this
topic. For example, there is the report of the Working Group on
Internet Governance, in which there are specific issues that could be
dealt with by the forum. Furthermore, we must not lose sight of the
fact that the forum is an outcome of the inconclusive discussions we
had in the summit on Internet governance. So some questions are still
pending an outcome. We are waiting for answers. And we hope that the
forum will enable us to think more deeply on these issues. And we hope
that the forum will provide recommendations. In other words, we see the
forum as an extension of the Working Group on Internet Governance, but
with a broader format and more extensive participation. We believe that
the essence of the objective of the forum, as enshrined in paragraph
72, subparagraph (E) of the Tunis Agenda, which stipulates, and I
quote, "To promote and permanently ensure the materialization of the
principle of the World Summit on the Information Society in the
Internet governance processes," end of quote. I agree with what was
said yesterday by the delegate from China, namely, that the Tunis
Agenda has specifically paragraphs that give us guidelines on the
establishment of the forum, in particular, paragraphs 72 to 82. We have
heard a lot of references made to the fact that the outcome of the
summit was successful, and Cuba agrees with those references. So it
makes sense for us to follow the model of the format and the structure
of the group of the work we carried out in the summit and which was
successful. Therefore, in relation specifically to the structure and
the format of the forum, we believe that we can continue -- we can
follow the model of the summit. With regard to the bureau, we also
believe that we should follow the successful model of the summit, and
that the respect we found very interesting what was said by the
delegate from Brazil. With regards to the -- how long the meeting
should last, the forum, we would say four to five days. And on the
frequency, at the beginning, we thought that it should be once a year.
But I must say that we are flexible in that area and we are listening
to the proposals that are being made in that respect. Thank you.
>>SECRETARY KUMMER: Thank you, Cuba. Pakistan, you asked for the
floor, please.
>>PAKISTAN: Thank you, Mr. Kummer. Mr. Kummer, I just wanted to
respond to the specific comment you made earlier about the holding of
the next set of consultations. We do appreciate the fact that,
obviously, there are time difficulties involved. But the commission on
human rights does not start -- now it's scheduled for the third week of
March. So there is time between now and the third week of March where
consultations could be held. The second point that we have not -- we
need to consider in the Group of 77 is this concept that you are
referring to and being referred to in this room on the steering
committee or the program committee. There is as such no agreement
within the Group of 77, or no discussion within the Group of 77 on a
steering committee or a program committee. So this is an idea that we
need to discuss before we go and say that the consultations be held
after the meeting of the steering committee or before the meeting of
the steering committee. I just wanted to flag that as a point of
concern from the Group of 77 and China, because these are issues that
have to be discussed. And that is why the Group of 77 and China felt
that there were a number of points that were raised in the discussions
yesterday and today that need further discussion and in-depth
discussions, I would say, within the Group of 77 for our positions to
be firmed up and for us to be able to come to any decisions within a
consultative process to be held later, in a month, as we had suggested.
We can have those consultations in three weeks, if not a month, so that
we have the period before the commission on human rights gets into
session. Thank you.
>>SECRETARY KUMMER: Thank you very much for your explanation. But I'm
also -- of course, we will look into the possibility of meeting
facilities, but I was told that it is very difficult after the February
dates. And as you will recall, we already had to change the dates we
had planned to have the dates for these consultations later. But then
there was the question of hotel capacity. So there are many
considerations that come into it. But we have to look into this, and we
have listened to the concerns expressed. And to turn back to the
distinguished delegate of Cuba, it is not quite as simple as that. I
mean, the United Nations office in Geneva has been very, very
accommodating because this is a mandate coming from the secretary
general. But there are program budget implications. And these meetings
are not on the scheduled program of meetings here in Geneva which are
planned a long time in advance and which come out of an
intergovernmental machinery. So we are really here at the courtesy of
the United Nations office in Geneva. They do what they can, but they
cannot do the impossible. But we will have to look into the
availability of meeting facilities. But let me now turn to the
Association -- I think you asked for the floor quite some time ago --
from Paris. Doesn't seem to be in the room. Then ISOC France.
>>ISOC FRANCE: Thank you, chairman. I'd like to take up three brief
points. For the organization, a number of people have suggested that
the meeting use webcast to be broadcast over the net. It seems to us,
as well, useful to benefit from the facilities provided in that sort of
meeting where everything is translated, for all the translations to be
recorded and put on the net. That would allow people to listen to
proceedings in the six languages. A number of speakers have talked
about the Internet tomorrow, or at least looking at what we have today
and to then think about topics which haven't been covered to any great
extent, and which might allow the forum not just to consider today's
problems but to look at the tools which will be installed and used
tomorrow. And in particular, to consider subjects which would require
more collective governance than we have today, and which might lead to
the suggestion that -- either that subjects be allocated to an existing
organization or that a new body be created to deal with specific
subjects. To be clearer about what I'm suggesting, I'm thinking of
everything revolving around object Internet, which seems to be a very
strong element for the future of the net, where questions such as uses,
protection of individual freedom, and that sort of thing are at the
heart of the debate, and where, for the time being, these tools are
managed fairly well, I imagine, by a small group, but which could
usefully be opened up to all those involved in Internet Governance. We
have also heard much mention of good practice. My professional
experience leads me to say that what would be even more interesting
would be to talk about bad practice, projects which collapsed, because
that's where you have the greatest collective benefit, when you analyze
that. Last year, I talked about exchange of practice because it seemed
more interesting than exchange of good practice, because what's good
for some, may be bad for others. But quite frankly, failed experiments
and projects allow you to make the most progress collectively. And the
representative of Brazil suggested an agenda, and I would suggest that
all the useless days, we take off the agenda. We'd save a lot of time
if we did that. Thank you.
>> SECRETARY KUMMER: Thank you. Holy See, please.
>>HOLY SEE: Thank you, Mr. Chair. And let me begin by thanking the
U.N. secretary-general for inviting us to this consultation and
yourself and also Mr. Desai for guiding our reflections since
yesterday. And my delegation has been following these reflections very
attentively, and we have been actually challenged by some of the ideas
we have listened to. And we have been posing questions to ourselves.
And what I'm going to do now is to share with you some of these, our
questions. We want to think aloud or reflect aloud so that you can
listen to us and also reflect with us. First question is, will the
forum that we are talking about discuss and maybe eventually propose a
model of a structure for the study and management of the Internet
Governance process? Second, do we consider Internet Governance Forum as
dovetailing into the primordial or wider goal of bridging the digital
divide? In other words, are we convinced enough that the main purpose
of an Internet Governance is to facilitate access to everybody and to
generate rules with the main aim of achieving a better communication
between persons and peoples? Four, if the aim is in some way linked to
bridging the digital divide, do we agree, then, on starting our
discussions by looking at the process from the side of the common
Internet user, with particular reference to those in developing
countries, and not just from the point of view of the well-established
entities and operators? We agree, such entities and operators which
are strongly represented here, exercising important rules in the
development of the Internet. Mr. Chairman, I would like to conclude by
returning to something I think I heard already proposed yesterday, and
that is that for a better use of time, we should establish an online
mechanism of the Internet Governance Forum which -- or through which
meetings could be prepared. This would help us reduce significantly
the time of the meetings, and also to give such meetings the real
nature of negotiations. Thank you very much.
>> SECRETARY KUMMER: Thank you, sir. I now give the floor to the
representative of Francophonie.
>>OIF: thank you. I am speaking on behalf of the Organisation
Internationale de la Francophonie, which is made up of 53 states and
governments, including 24 LDCs. We welcome the fact that this assembly
wants to give particular importance to inclusion of developing
countries, getting them involved in this very important issue of
Internet Governance. We also agree with those speakers who seek maximum
efficiency and effectiveness during the forum by sticking to a certain
number of issues and by preparing upstream, using those tools available
in the digital world. Of course, the question of languages is a very
important one. When we have occasion to meet in a room in the U.N., we
have translation, interpretation in the six languages. And I know it's
difficult, but it's very pleasant for those who don't master the main
international language. But to succeed in the work upstream, Internet
sites should use more than one language, and we should all make an
effort to try to make the text available in other languages. I know
it's a bit easier or it should be a bit easier for international
organizations which have a multilingual mandate, particularly united
nations, organizations which would benefit from using more than one
language when they submit a text. The same could be said for civil
society and private sector groups representing several members. We all
have an effort to make, and I think it shows a feeling of unease, that
even in a meeting where we have interpretation in six languages, that
people use a language which isn't their own language, whereas their own
language can be used if it's one of the six U.N. languages. But people
nevertheless prefer to use the main international language to try to
get their thoughts across. It's a very uncomfortable feeling, and
particularly for developing countries. Language can be a factor of
exclusion in the major international debates. And when you don't
master the main international language, it's very difficult to get your
views across and to be heard. I think it's to the benefit of everybody
to know each other better, to talk to each other better, if we listen
to everybody's expectations and hopes. Thank you.
>> SECRETARY KUMMER: Thank you for this statement, which I think you
raised a very important point. And I feel somewhat guilty, as you
mentioned and you pointed out to our Web site which is one language
only. I am painfully aware of this shortcoming. But this is also a
question of resources. And I also hope that it's not only resources --
it's financial resources and human resources, but I also hope that
maybe we can find ways with voluntary cooperation that we find
voluntary contributions, voluntary translators, to have the Web site in
more than one language, which would be, of course, a very important
step forward. And on this occasion, I would also like to thank you the
organization of the Francophonie for having financed the translation of
the WGIG background report into French. Thus, at least, making
available some material to a large community which may be is not at
home as much in English. Thank you once again. I now turn to the gate
information technology society. You have the floor, sir.
>>ABDULLTEEF AL-ABDULRAZZAQ: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman,
this is Abdullteef Al-Abdulrazzaq, chairman of Kuwait information
technology society, a member of the Internet Governance caucus. The
society believes that the Internet Governance Forum should emphasize on
reaching a workable model for multilateral governance of the Internet
that is compliant with the WSIS principles, evolutionary in process,
and acceptable by all stakeholders. The IGF should regard the issue of
the Internet Governance as a matter that unites the world community,
resolves its differences, and not dividing it. Ensuring the effective
global participation of multistakeholders is essential to its success.
We believe that all stakeholders should participate in the IGF
activities in an equal manner. The status of the stakeholders should be
agreed upon and settled and finalized from the start of all the
activities of the IGF, and should not be reviewed at the specific stage
later on. The effective participation of the developing countries and
the equal presence of the north and south involvement are key issues
that need to be considered. Bearing in mind the limited resources of
some stakeholders in terms of participating in the upcoming IGF
functions, we urge to take into account the following. First, holding
events in various geographical regions. Second, giving electronic means
of communications more leverage in holding events and carrying open
consultations. Three, organizing back to back IGF events. The U.N.
rules and procedures have so far contributed to the success of the
WSIS, and seeing it implemented once again in terms of the
participation mechanism of the IGF will definitely reflect positively
on its activities. Furthermore, a combination of thematic regional
conferences and open consultation meetings that would lead to an annual
meeting of the IGF will enhance its process. Establishing national IGFs
or local community IGF with open participation for all stakeholders
will help the IGF process to be more focused. An acceptable
multistakeholder model of Internet Governance will demand minimum
requirements that each and everyone should comply with. Issues such as
capacity building, such as technical expertise, best practices, and
digital inclusion; second, information security and privacy; third,
enabling environment, such as laws and regulations; fourth, promoting
the national content and preserving the national identity. Such issues
are all considered some of the most important matters to developing
countries which expects -- which expect to address it with their
sisters and involvement of major international bodies. In this respect,
the subject of international domain names is an important subject that
should be addressed and implemented in a manner that would not create
blocs or isolated islands or harm the Internet integrity. But, rather,
it should promote cultural diversity, national content, and the
openness of the Internet to everyone. In the end, we do look forward to
the successful outcome of the IGF. I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>> SECRETARY KUMMER: Thank you very much. I now turn to the Foundation
for Free Information Infrastructure, Mr. Bollow.
>>NORBERT BOLLOW: Thank you. I would like to react to the statement
of Brazil that the Internet Governance Forum could take many days so
that we can wait -- so that we can afford to waste an entire day. I
would like to emphasize that technical experts don't think that way.
If a lot of patience for political speeches is required, they will
simply not come. So the position of FFII is that the IGF should be at
most two days, although I suppose we could live with three. There is,
of course, the concern that it may not make sense to travel a long way
just for two days. And for this reason, I would suggest to schedule
the Internet Governance Forum back to back with a technical conference
which is of interest to the leading thinkers that everybody has been
emphasizing should be attracted to the Internet Governance Forum. And
such technical conference would also give diplomats and everyone else
here the opportunity to set your feet into the world of how technical
experts think and interact with each other. Thank you.
>> SECRETARY KUMMER: Thank you. I now give the floor to Francis
Urbany, vice president of BellSouth. You have the floor, sir.
>> Francis Urbany: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Francis Urbany
with BellSouth corporation in the United States. And as such, I am
attending this consultative meeting as part of the private sector. It
will not come as a surprise that I endorse the views expressed earlier
by CCBI/ICC. What I would like to do, though, is take advantage of this
opportunity, mr. chairman, and to make a few personal observations
based on some of the discussion I heard here today. I see the clock is
moving. I have only a few points, and won't take an undue amount of
time. I'll try to be brief. Very brief. First, I would say that I
clearly embrace the sentiment discussed here for a multistakeholder
participation on an equal footing. Mr. Chairman, I compliment you on
the way you have conducted this consultation in such an open way, where
all attendees are able to participate on an equal basis. For those of
you who may not have participated in earlier sessions during the WSIS
in PrepCom 3 particularly, this opportunity for equal participation did
not exist for nongovernmental members. I sat in this very room and in
other rooms where discussions were going on, was able to listen but not
able to interchange views on an equal basis with other participants. So
I therefore welcome this opportunity, which leads me to a point. The
earlier discussions were held under the procedural rules of the United
Nations and intergovernmental organization. Those rules, Mr. Chairman,
in my opinion, are not suitable for the intergovernmental forum, which
is of entirely different nature. It is not an intergovernmental
meeting. It's a meeting of all participants. Therefore, the rules of
participation to allow people like myself and others here to speak
freely and present views is really what is needed. In other words, the
traditional rules of intergovernmental organizations are really not
applicable to the intergovernmental -- Internet Governance Forum. The
second point I would like to make is with respect to the initial IGF
meeting, after listening to the extensive discussion here, which has
been very welcome and has been very enlightening, one can come away
with the impression that the IGF could mean all things to all people.
Given the limited amount of time and the focus and the mandate in
paragraph 72, it is my view that a well focused IGF addressing a few
items of importance to the international community should be the MODUS
vivendi for operating. In this respect I endorse the view presented
yesterday by the spokesman from Canada, that said, to paraphrase, that
the focus should be on positive outcomes, and not to address divisive
issues. I couldn't stress more how important I think that notion is for
the IGF, and particularly for the initial meeting of the IGF. We've
come a long ways here. We came to many meetings. IGF is a decision of
WSIS. We want that to be successful. Therefore, it's important that
the IGF succeed. It's important that the process of the IGF get off to
a good start. As we all know from our personal experience, success
breeds success. We need to make a good beginning. So in sum, Mr.
Chairman, I would say that in the end, common sense, not rhetoric,
should guide us in formulating the agenda for the initial IGF, which
will be held later this year. With that, Mr. Chairman, thank you for
the opportunity to make these brief remarks.
>> SECRETARY KUMMER: Thank you very much. Marilyn Cade speaking for
Limited liability corporation. Well maybe -- she is in the back of the
room. Maybe we give the floor to somebody else. ISOC, you also asked
for the floor. ISOC first.
>>ISOC: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We'd like to take this opportunity to
address some of the questions that were raised yesterday. In terms of
the outcome that we expect of the Internet Governance Forum, we believe
that the IGF should act as a forum for sharing best practice,
expertise, and for presenting a range of finding related to a
particular issue or limited set of issues. As the Tunis Agenda clearly
states, the IGF should be a neutral, nonduplicative and nonbinding
process, and therefore should merely present findings for consideration
by interested parties. With regard to the multistakeholder bureau, ISOC
believes the bureau should be renamed into a program committee as many
here have said, that the term bureau has specific connotations in the
U.N. system. The program committee should, as is anticipated in the
Tunis Agenda text, be a multistakeholder, representative advisory body
that helps shape and set the agenda and issue focus of the forum. ISOC
could foresee a program committee composed of representatives of the
principal stakeholders with rotating co-chairs. Which of course brings
me to the issue of the principal stakeholders. The Internet society and
other organizations, as you have heard, believe that the Internet
community should be recognized as a distinct principal stakeholder in
the Internet Governance Forum for a number of reasons, not least of is
which was the technical and academic communities recognition in the
Tunis Agenda in paragraph 36. This request for recognition as a
distinct principal stakeholder is, we believe, more than warned given
that the Internet community, including many tens of thousands of
individuals and thousands of organizations, comprises inter alia
organizations responsible for operating and managing the Internet.
Standards setting organizations, international, regional, national, and
local organizations responsible for the management and physical
distribution of global resources. Organizations responsible for the
long-term development of the Internet, and organizations such as the
Internet society with 20,000 members and more than 80 chapters around
the world, not forgetting the thousand of Internet user groups across
the globe. With regard to the program committee, we see it having an
important role in reaching out and encouraging the participation of
experts. In addition, we see the program committee as having an
important role in encouraging the fullest participation across regions
and stakeholders, with a particular emphasis on the developing world.
We would note that the levels of expertise and the level of developing
country participation will be one of the most significant measures of
the success of the forum. Let me just address quickly the issue of what
issues the IGF should focus on. There has been some discussion about
the issues that should be discussed, whether there should be few or
many, and whether contentious issues should be on the table. ISOC agree
that is many of the areas included in the WSIS clearly will require
additional review, and it will be up to the program committee to decide
which will be the subject of its focus. However, we would recommend
that the IGF prioritize its issue focus on those that will facilitate
progress on developmental issues and address other unresolved issues at
a later time. Clearly, work on these unresolved issues will continue in
parallel in many existing fora. But the focus, we believe, should
reflect a clear focus on ICTs on development that was the goal of the
WSIS process. We'd also like to just briefly comment on the question of
the online virtual community that was raised yesterday also. ISOC
believes that the forum's success will depend very much on the
mechanisms for contributing to the discussion, and one of the best
means of doing so would be through a Web-based work and communications
space. Such a Web-based mechanism will encourage participation from
across stakeholders. But it will be important that this collaborative
workspace be appropriately hosted, given the need for consistency and
stability. However, we would pose a caution. We should all be cognizant
of the related time and resource issues. It is unrealistic to expect
all stakeholders to be able to participate in multiple-layered
list-based exchanges on a realtime basis. Many stakeholders do not have
the resources or time to spend managing or participating in ongoing
discussions. With regards to the plenary, the forum should meet once a
year. The meetings should not exceed two to three days, given the
personnel and financial constraints that many stakeholders are subject
to. We believe that in order to attract the greatest participation, it
might be useful for the forum to be held in a different region each
year. The Internet society and the Internet community stand ready to
participate fully and constructively in the IGF, just as they have
endeavored to do so over the last three to four years of the WSIS.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: Can I have Marilyn Cade from IIC.
>>MARILYN CADE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Mr. Kummer.
This is my first public statement to the group at large, so thus, in
addition to thanking you both, I should like to take this opportunity
to express my appreciation to all other participants as well, as we
are, by working together, beginning the practice of multistakeholder
participation on an equal footing. And to me, as a participant, it
seems to be working quite well. I do support statements made earlier by
others from the business community, and I have heard contributions from
others in the group that we are meeting in yesterday and today that I
can also support. But as a speaker today, perhaps my perspective is a
bit unique. I am now a small business owner and CEO of a microbusiness.
My business is advising a range of companies and organizations that
range from multinational corporations to very small entrepreneurs,
companies like AT&T, overstock.com, World Stock, the Global IP
Alliance, among others. There are several work activities and follow-on
mechanisms that are outcomes of the Tunis Agenda. And all of us and
many of the stakeholders who will want to participate in the IGF are
also engaged in these issues. And since we are seeking to operate in a
multistakeholder mode, we must now look at these congruent and parallel
activities and respect that each of them has a space, without the need
to duplicate each other's work or agenda. We must seek cooperation,
collaboration, congruency, and coexistence across these parallel sets
of activities. For instance, some of the relevant parallel activities
are the ongoing examination by the ITU's member states and sector
members of its work and activities, the action lines from the Tunis
Agenda, the follow-on activities within ICANN, where the role of the
Government Advisory Committee and the ICANN stakeholders is being
examined, and where policies related to IP addressing, domain names,
and other technical management issues of the Internet are addressed in
a multistakeholder environment. And, of course, the Internet Governance
Forum, a very important opportunity for all -- governments, civil
society, the Internet technical community, business -- this offers a
unique opportunity that deserves our efforts to ensure its success and
its contribution to providing improved awareness, increased
information, and increased opportunities to participate in a meaningful
way, especially for those from the developing countries. I note that
there are many demands on human and financial resources, and there is
much work to be done. And we must be very careful not to duplicate the
work that is being done in one of these other parallel activities.
Interested parties, instead, should go to that other forum rather than
seeking to centralize all topics into the IGF. I am supportive of an
IGF that is focused on issues where there is consensus across all
stakeholders to discuss these issues. We cannot address all issues in
the IGF, and the selection of issues should be focused on those where
there is the greatest consensus and those that address development and
capacity-building. An annual event of approximately three days, held in
the same time frame each year, with the support of a small, streamlined
Secretariat, supported by a representative multistakeholder steering
committee, and focused on dialogue and information, will, I believe,
ensure the greatest success. As for timing, we must now examine more
than just intergovernmental calendars and ensure that care is taken to
recognize that major international gatherings exist in the Internet
space as well. Just in the late fall alone, we need to take note that
in November, there is an important three-week meeting of the ITU's
plenipotentiary, the annual meeting of ICANN in the first week of
December, and there's an important gathering of the IETF in December.
Thus, personally, I look forward to meeting with all of you in Athens
in October before the late fall marathon of these other meetings exist.
I also urge that there is sensitivity to the demands upon all of us
when there are face-to-face meetings for preparation. The vast majority
of interested parties from the technical community, from business, from
civil society, and, indeed, from governments are not located in Geneva
or a single other city. And, of course, we all have our day jobs, that
is, the work that must be accomplished as well. So planning should be
undertaken largely online, with perhaps contributions of one page in
length that are concrete and focused. And when it is essential that
there are face-to-face planning meetings, they should be kept to a
minimum, there should be realtime transcription, as we have today, as
well as posting of materials for access by remote participations. And
when there are face-to-face planning meetings of the bureau
Secretariat, I welcome the idea to have open consultations, but note
that it is challenging for small businesses, and I think for everyone,
to devote the human and financial resources to participation. I have
appreciated the opportunity to participate yesterday and today, and I
look forward to the rest of our working efforts today in how we can
jointly ensure a successful and focused Internet Governance Forum that
enhances multistakeholder dialogue.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: I have David Allen from the collaboration for
communication policy research.
>>COLLABORATION FOR COMM. POLICY: I'd like to try to build on
thoughts from Bertrand de la Chapelle earlier and from Brazil and from
Switzerland, among several others. It's clear how important it is to
have a successful first IGF, for ourselves, first of all, but to, for
the future, attract those who have not so far engaged so much with this
process, and also for those here who have some questions, some
reservations about exactly what it will do. It seems clear from
experience, at least to me, that real substantive, productive,
attractive work in a meeting, like IGF, must be preceded by some
serious substantive preparation. And I'm talking about substantive work
on the topics that the program committee finally picks. And, equally,
it seems that that gets done in groups of a size like ten or about that
number. Let's call them working groups. Which says that to succeed in
October, we need not only a selection of topics, perhaps in May from a
steering committee, but there then need to be working groups really
quite quickly formed and to get to work so that there is something to
present in October. There's a subtext here. It is -- shall I call it
the marriage between the working style of the Internet community, where
working groups are everything, and where participation in those working
groups is wide open, that's on the one side. And on the other side, the
working style of U.N. proceedings and those that governments are
particularly familiar with. We need in this brave new world to take the
risk of those innovations and make some good choices about how that
marriage will come together. This also raises issues about how we'll
use online tools to support such working groups. But rather than go
into that now, let me simply raise for consideration the importance of
putting such core capabilities in place and to work soon so that
there's something powerful to do in October in Athens. Thank you.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: I have George GREVE for the Free Software
Foundation forum.
>> GEORG GREVE: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I speak in my capacity of the
Free Software Foundation Europe, a European nongovernmental
organization dedicated to all aspects of free software, as defined by
the four fundamental freedoms specified in the free software
definition. We operate in a network of sister organizations in Latin
America, India, Europe, and the United States, and work in close
cooperation with the Global Free Software Community. We have been
following the discussions with great interest, and in the interest of
moving forward, would like to offer a few comments on what we heard so
far. Firstly, though, let me congratulate you and thank you and Mr.
Kummer on the meeting and the open and inclusive spirit in which it was
convened. We hope this will be maintained for future sessions. One of
the terms we heard rather frequently in this debate was "multilingual."
Alas, we are somewhat at a loss as to the concrete definition of this
term. Private discussions throughout the past day and a half seem to
have turned up various meanings and definitions that had little in
common and were, in fact, at times contradictory. In the field of
software, most people would probably understand it as localization of
the software itself in order to make the software talk to each of its
users in their own language. Since free software, and in particular,
its freedom of modification, permits all groups to adapt the software
to their own cultural environment, this has been a major driving force
for adoption of free software in many parts of the world, especially
many developing countries, which are often not considered interesting
enough markets for major proprietary software vendors. You will thus
not be surprised if I, of course, fully embrace the importance of
multilingualism. If we plan for the IGF to come to concrete and
successful outcomes, it does seem, however, necessary to come to a
common understanding of what that term is actually supposed to mean.
Spam is another issue on the minds of many delegations. In our
experience, spam is not so much a technical, but, fundamentally, a
social and economic problem. Most of the technological remedies we have
seen proposed in the past would do very little to address the issue of
spam, but raise a serious issue of interoperability. Several
delegations pointed out that the Internet has a close relation to the
principles of interoperability and freedom. The connection between free
software and its principles and the Internet is, indeed, not
circumstantial. If one takes a look at the history of networks, one
will find a list of proprietary approaches to build something like the
Internet, which failed without exception. It took free software to make
the Internet work. Spam remedies we have seen suggested by major
industry vendors require discarding the very principles that made the
Internet possible, and it would be tragic, indeed, if attempts at
regulating spam were to undo what we have all come to depend on. We
therefore consider it necessary for the IGF to establish for itself a
set of basic principles that will uphold and strengthen the foundations
on which the Internet was built. These principles shall, in particular,
ensure freedom and interoperability on a fundamental level as a common
ground on which to implement the principles agreed upon during the
World Summit on the Information Society. Regarding the tools discussed
to continue the forum online between sessions, I wish to emphasize the
importance of practicing what we preach. All IGF online resources
should be fully accessible to all users, including those with
disabilities, and put effective use of bandwidth high on its list of
priorities to avoid excluding participants in regions with limited
Internet access. The free software community has a longstanding
experience in ensuring participation and collaboration across cultural,
language, and connectivity barriers and gladly offers its expertise to
the process. As a final and very concrete remark, let me suggest that
for future sessions of the IGF, the very basic and necessary facilities
of those who wish to use the Internet will be provided in future
sessions. I observed a serious power struggle going on in this room,
and it was not about politics. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: That last point, this is one way you can recognize
an IGF meeting is all of these wires where you will trip everywhere you
walk. But I hope that these things change in time. I have one more.
Philippe Vacheyrout, the president of Capucine.net.
>>PHILIPPE VACHEYROUT: Thank you, sir. Capucine.net, a nonprofit
organization, has made a contribution to the Tunis Summit and we're
glad to take part in this forum, without which the summit would have
had no reason to exist. Our aim is to promote the use of ICT and a
social partnership approach. We have a global approach based on users
which leads us more specifically to study accessibility, sharing, and
interoperability of use whilst we're expecting the specific features of
each and every player, whatever his or her role in society. It makes it
possible to concentrate on the fundamentals, such as security,
accessibility, spam, multilingualism, subjects which we've already
heard about, and we can thus contribute to a topic for the forum. To
get down to the nitty-gritty, let's take personal medical files, which
are being introduced in France. We are seeing the first effects of
governance related to Internet use. It's no longer the doctor
surrounded by patients, but patients surrounded by doctors, for
preventive care and treatment. And the same will be true tomorrow for
education, justice, employment, and online voting, with all the
problems of accessibility and security relating to data protection,
personal data, as well as the use of biometrics with the net, which is
a hot topic. The aim is to find the means to put technology to the
service of citizens and not the reverse. Convergence of technology, in
particular, between the net and mobile phones is changing the possible
uses we can make of them because we are seeing the emergence of new
standards and new uses which will provide answers to the questions we
are now asking and also raise new questions. This requires innovation.
And we will be delighted to see this forum as a context for allowing
citizens to contribute to Internet governance. Thank you.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: Thank you. We will have one more speaker, but I am
waiting for him to sit down. Vittorio Bertola.
>>VITTORIO BERTOLA: Sorry, you will have to wait for ten seconds for
me to bring up the statement. Okay. I guess I was possibly the only one
getting the floor immediately after asking for it. So thank you for
that. Well, actually, my -- I wanted to give a statement on behalf of
an online campaign, they had -- I am participating to it. And they've
asked me to give this statement to address one specific topic on the
agenda for the Athens meeting. And -- okay, it's almost there. Maybe.
Well, maybe I can just introduce it. I mean, it is an online campaign
named Tunis Mon Amour. It was launched in Tunis. And the objective of
this campaign was to raise the creation for a Bill of Rights for the
Internet. In particular, a document stating the rights of the users of
the network. So this is the statement. We, the supporters of the Tunis
campaign for an Internet Bill of Rights would like to plead (inaudible)
to receive our proposal. Our campaign was started in Tunis by an appeal
signed by members of all the stakeholders groups of the Internet,
including Brazil's minister of culture, the former chairman of the
European Data Protection Agency's working party, Professor Stefano
Rodota; the founder of Creative Commons, Professor Lawrence Lessig; and
the founder of the Free Software Foundation, Richard Stallman. The
purpose of the campaign is to ask the United Nations to lead an open,
inclusive, collaborative process involving all stakeholders, both
online and offline, to draft and adopt a Bill of Rights of the
Internet, stating rights and duties of the users of the net. So to set
a common founding basis at the level of principle necessary to address
the numerous methods related to Internet governance that have been
raised during the WSIS and WGIG processes. We think that the new
Internet Governance Forum is the natural place to host this discussion,
and thus we would like to propose that this matter is added to the
agenda of the first meeting to be held in 2006. In such occasion, we
would like to discuss and agree how to start the process through which
consensus on the new document could be reached. We thank you for your
understanding and support. If you are interested in getting more
information about this campaign, the Web site is www.tunisMONAOMO.org.
Thank you.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: We have heard, I think, all the speakers who wanted
to speak on those questions. And I have just been trying to think on
how we proceed for the -- Australia, yes.
>>AUSTRALIA: Thank you, Mr. Chair. You might be going to answer my
question, but I'll ask it anyway. Will you be taking further
contributions this afternoon or should I do it now? My preference is to
wait until after lunch.
>>CHAIRMAN DESAI: I think let's meet after lunch. The reason is that
I'm going to try and pose a few more questions to you. Because we need
to move forward. And let me try and sense what I believe I can convey
to the secretary general. First, as far as the question of convening
the forum is concerned, I don't see any matter of dispute. It has
already been decided. I do sense also a general agreement that it will
be a multistakeholder forum with an open policy of participation,
subject only to relatively light scrutiny of relevance, competence, and
bona fides of the organization and people who wish to participate. I
would say that there is some question about the exact timing of the
first meeting which consultations are going on. And I was hoping it
would get resolved by lunchtime now. But it has not yet been resolved.
One of the reasons I want to meet in the afternoon is in the hope that
it may get resolved by then. But if not, we would have to live with the
uncertainty as to the exact dates. But it would be sometime in October
and November. I think these are fairly straightforward things. I also
am impressed by the fact that there's general agreement on the need for
a relatively organized multistakeholder management process for this,
and for -- to avoid confusion, I'm proposing to just refer to it as the
program committee. Because I think to use concepts from
intergovernmental negotiations, words like "bureau" and so on, adds to
confusion. Whereas I think "program committee" makes it very clear, its
job is to manage the program. And so there are -- I think there is a
general agreement on the need for a multistakeholder process for this
program management. And I will call this process the program committee.
I would like to say that there is agreement on how this will be
constituted, but, frankly, there have been many -- people have not
given a very precise idea on what they would see this committee as. One
notion has been a committee with balanced representation from all of
the stakeholders, governments, civil society, private sector, Internet
community, also ensuring geographical balance across all of these
sectors. %%%l3end.
%%%tstart3. Another concept which has been put forward is the notion of
three bureaus, A la WSIS, but presumably the three bureaus would have
to work together if it is a multistakeholder process to arrive at a
decision. But by implication of that three bureaus, it would mean that
any one stakeholder group, so to speak, would -- that all stakeholder
groups must decide that this is worth doing. That's, I think, the
implication as I read it of the three bureau concept which has been put
forward. But nevertheless, there are differences in terms of how this
Program Committee should be put together or constituted. And also,
people are not entirely -- have not been entirely explicit about how
they see it being constituted. I would look forward to seeing any
further comments that you have on this, because I think it is valuable
to constitute this Program Committee -- agree -- that I would like to
be able to say that there is general agreement. Otherwise, I will just
convey the range of views on the Program Committee, and then the
secretary-general will have to take a view on how to handle this. I
think there has been a great deal of discussion on what is it that the
meeting itself should do, and there there are differences. The
differences were highlighted yesterday along what I would describe as
three axes. On one axis it is vertical and horizontal issues. A
feeling that many of the people were focusing on what would be
described as the vertical issues, specific issues of spam or cybercrime
and so on, whereas some people felt what were called horizontal issues
in the Working Group on Internet Governance, et cetera, needed to get
more attention. The second dimension of the things that I sense is if
it is being handled somewhere, then the IGF should not get into it.
And some people questioned that, saying why? Because after all, if it
is being handled somewhere in a process that is not open, we must still
need to talk about it in IGF because the whole point of IGF is it's an
open process in which everybody can participate. And I sense a
difference in the way people would look at the eligibility of an issue
to be on the agenda in this dimension also. And the third dimension is
let's avoid controversial issues, and some people said, no, not
necessarily. Why should we avoid controversial issues. After all, the
forum exists to give voice to people. And if it exists to give voice,
you cannot necessarily avoid controversial issues. So these are
differences, and I cannot tell the secretary-general that there is
complete unanimity or agreement among people in those areas. In
specific, I feel that there is a very strong message from not just the
developing countries but many of you on the importance of reflecting
the developmental dimension more fully and adequately in the work of
the IGF. And the question I had raised yesterday as to exactly what we
mean, and some clarity did emerge today as to what do we mean when we
say the development. And there was, for instance, a certain listing of
what these things could be, which was mentioned by several
participants, which I think is very helpful. I feel that there is --
perhaps this is not an area where there are big differences. Most
people seem to -- the message they were conveying is that they really
see the role of the IGF as something which is focused on development,
except that what they meant by "development" was sometimes very broad,
sometimes a little more narrow in interprets of just Internet
development. So I would -- I feel this also needs to be explored a
little bit further. I can't see that we can do that today, on this
exploration of the agenda, and what the IGF could deal with more
generally as well as what it should deal with in its first session. I
don't think it's possible for me to be able to convey to the
secretary-general a clear idea saying, "This is what we should be
doing" type of thing. I also feel that there was some discussion on the
format of the meeting. Several very useful suggestions came. Clearly,
the impression that I gather is most people expect this to have a
plenary at the beginning and the end, and a fair number of working
sessions in the middle, depending on what the agenda is, whether it is
one, five, or -- it all depends on what finally is the view taken on
the agenda. There was also a suggestion on, if you like, a sort of high
box speaker's corner, where people could just come and say their peace,
a poster session, if you wish to call it. These are, I think, ideas
which could be looked at. My own sense is that there's also been the
idea, suggestion, that we really can't complete the consultations on
this in these two days; that we may need a second round of
consultation. I think there are some logistical problems in the second
round in terms of doing it in Geneva because of the almost total lack
of availability of meeting facilities, but there are other ways in
which the consultation could be done. And maybe we can do the thing in
two parts, which is that initially we just take some -- the
secretary-general basically takes the minimal decisions which need to
be taken in order to convene the forum so that there is some
definiteness on the basis of which the Greek authorities can start
proceeding, and the second round would then try to see, in greater
depth, as to what would be done, the structure of the forum, the teams,
and various other issues which arise. What I would like to see is some
sense of agreement on how -- what sort of Program Committee should be
constituted. I don't think we should get too focused on numbers,
whether it should be 20 people or whatever it is. Some people said
smaller than the Working Group on Internet Governance. That's one
number that you can work with. Many people have mentioned the number 15
as the number for the country representation, because it gives you
three from each region. I think that's something which is -- we can get
to without too much difficulty. It's really a question of how it will
be constituted, if it is a three-part committee, do you really see the
three parts working independently or working together, in which case it
really becomes a big committee of what do you see decisions being
taken, so to speak, by -- separately and then coming together for some
type of common agreement? How do we reflect the multistakeholder
management dimension? We have to be creative in this process. The
reason I'm stressing that we discuss a little, the whole question of
the Program Committee in the afternoon and see whether we can get to
some -- whether there is some further ideas which I could convey to the
secretary-general, is because it's possible that the next round of
further consultations would really be done by the Program Committee,
who would then -- who would have the responsibility for managing the
forum itself. There have been many references to how close or how far
it should be from the U.N. I think in certain respects, we have to
recognize that this is a forum which is born out of a U.N.-based
process; that it is the U.N. later which will be looking into its
functioning as well as the various decisions, as we were reminded
yesterday. But nevertheless, it's not a U.N. intergovernmental forum.
The language is very clear. It is an Internet Governance Forum. It is
not a classical U.N. subsidiary body of any sort. That is -- and this
is certainly the legal opinion as far as I look. The point, however,
is we have to see what aspects of the connection with the U.N. would be
of use and value in this whole process. For instance, if we are to
have host countries for this, as we have now, and this is probably
almost unavoidable, because since nobody has a budget for this forum,
it is going to depend very much on host countries and on voluntary
funding. It would seem to me that it's useful to use some of the
practices of the U.N. when it comes to the -- that aspect. I think as
far as other aspects are concerned, it could be done, as things evolve.
There are some other aspects of U.N. work like the working in six
languages which perhaps is something which also may be desirable for
the forum to continue with, because it is meant to be a global forum,
and if you start getting involved in the discussions in the forum on
how many languages we should have, it will become too difficult.
Whereas here you have a standard, the six languages of the U.N. You
work with that. And let's live with that practical approach. So there
are aspects where I believe the forum could gain. But are there other?
Can people be a little more explicit and elaborate what other aspects
of U.N. practice which they think would be of value, which other
aspects are not of value? Because it's worth keeping in mind. I don't
think this needs to be decided now, but it is something as a small
matter which we wish to look at. I think the funding issue is
important. As I said, none of us have a budget for this in the U.N.
At the moment, a small Secretariat -- and let me be clear, the Program
Committee is the management committee, like the political management
committee for the forum, the Secretariat is just right now three of us,
and I'm very part time. I work roughly 20 days a year for the
Secretariat, whereas Markus and his assistant are there all the time,
so it is pretty lightweight. If it is any lighter than that it will
disappear [ Laughter ]
>> CHAIRMAN DESAI: So it can't be lighter than what we have now. So I
would say that the Secretariat arrangements are there, we have some
resources. But perhaps the actual forum costs will, to some extent,
will start being covered because of this hosting arrangements that we
may have for the different forums. But I think the important point that
I want to stress, which came across very sharply, is the resources that
we need to enjoy -- to ensure that developing countries can participate
effectively. I think this is a dimension we have often tended to miss
out in this process -- in many of these processes. And I would stress
this also. I would also now stress one more thing. A multistakeholder
process involves not just rights. It also involves obligations. If it
is a multistakeholder process, people are participating on an equal
basis. I will then say, well, please help, then, with the running --
with the financing of this process also. Because I don't think it's
possible to say that we'll run it as a multistakeholder process and
then say, oh, no, the secretary must keep mobilizing money from
governments on a voluntary basis to run everything. I would say i would
certainly deliver one strong message from my side to this, which is
that a multistakeholder process has to be looked at not just in terms
of right but in terms of obligations to support that process, both
financially but as well as politically and in terms of outreach. There
are some -- one final issue I wanted to raise with you. When we start
talking about the teams which we will cover in a forum like this, when
we start talking about how the forum will be structured, let's keep in
mind that we need to make this forum an attractive forum for people who
are not normally a part of multilateral diplomacy. I was very impressed
by a phrase which was used which was we need to make something where
there is active capacity building of the people who come. A value
proposition. Somebody said yes, if I go there, I will learn something.
I am going to come away with some contacts, maybe, maybe I learn
something. Maybe some new deal will come out of this. We must keep
this in mind. I have noticed, now that I live mostly in my own country
rather than the big centers of multilateralism, Geneva and New York,
that when I talk to people about this process and about Tunis, their
reaction is "what's in it for me? Why should I go there?" It's not
that they -- they have the money. All these chaps in India are making
tons of money. But that's not their problem. Their problem is they
don't see any value. They say there's nothing in this for me. And I
think it's important that we keep this dimension in mind; that we have
to try and design a forum which is not just a forum which would be
attractive for people who are involved in multilateral diplomacy. We
have to design a forum which is attractive for the people who are
really involved in the development of the Internet at every level. At
country level, at whatever else. And they are not going to be
interested only in the big political issues. They are also going to be
interested in the sorts of things we do, which make them -- which allow
them to learn things, which allow them to connect with other people. So
would urge you to keep this aspect in mind also, that I don't think we
are going to get the sort of participation we want, particularly from
developing countries. But people are much more particular about what
they spend their money on since they have so much less of it. We will
not get the participation from developing countries unless we make this
a forum which really is a learning experience and not just a
negotiating experience. I've seen this not just in this. I saw this
when I was doing the Johannesburg summit. I saw this in other places,
that the bulk of the -- most of the people who come there do not come
there because of their interest in the negotiating processes or even in
the debates. The people come there because they want to find out what
is happening in their area of interest when other places in the world,
what they can learn from it, what they can take away from it, who they
can network with, what connections they can establish. And I think we
should not lose sight of this when we speak of encouraging
participation. Can we reflect this in some way in the way we actually
manage this forum and run this forum? So I would pose these questions
to you, and let's come back and see what reflections you have so that
in the hope that I can convey to the secretary-general probably a
somewhat slightly greater sense of convergence on some of these issues
than what I sense so far. So with this, I would like to -- Pakistan.
Sorry.
>>PAKISTAN: Sorry, Mr. Desai. When you were away, we had raised a
point to Mr. Kummer from which we didn't get a response and we hope to
get it in the afternoon. As you know, we represent the group of 77 and
China. This concept of the Steering Committee or the Program
Committee, there is no discussion within the group of 77 on that, and
there is no agreement that we can convey to you or no understanding on
that concept as such that we can convey to you here. And therefore,
we'd like to put that down as a footnote and come back to it in the
afternoon.
>> CHAIRMAN DESAI: Certainly. In fact, my hope is that we focus on
this. And as I said, basically the responsibility of convening the
forum rests with the secretary-general. We are not negotiating here. I
am only trying to get forth some views so I can convey something.
Because this isn't a classical intergovernmental forum. And as I said,
I would urge that we keep it flexible, so it's not as if things get
decided forever. But we simply say that we decide things for the first
forum, and then we see how things are and maybe change as they -- if
things don't work out. But at this stage, let's see how much we can --
what sort of convergence I can sense. If I don't, I will just convey
that to the secretary-general, say this is the range. And perhaps we
may think in terms of doing things in two stages. Stage one where we
just take the basic decisions required for the Greek authorities to
start their work, and then stage two where we get into some of the
other details, where differences are more larger and more substantial,
and where the process of finding common ground would then have to
include some measure of give and take by the different parties. Let's
see whether something like this can be done. We don't have to decide
everything straight away, but at least enough to allow the process to
start. Okay? Thank you very much. I see you at 3:00, then.